Eugene Platt worked around his exclusion from the only debate to be held in the SC1 special election by live-tweeting responses. Using the SC Green Party's Twitter feed, he communicated brief and direct answers to the media.

It's ironic that in defending Patch's decision to exclude Platt, debate organizer Shawn Drury sent an article from an organization founded by Ralph Nader.
The article attacks the biased and corporate-controlled Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD). But Drury misunderstood the article to justify his own biased decision.

After the 1992 performance of Ross Perot, the CPD was set up by the Republican and Democratic Parties with a board of directors made up primarily of committed partisans from each, specifically to take total control of the debates, choosing the locations, rules, moderators, and participating candidates.

The two major parties would rather not compete with ideas, but with partisan branding. Every year, public dissatisfaction with our politics grows worse. Every year, the guardians of political debate narrow the discussion even more.

Numerous comments have been made by concerned voters on articles relating to Platt's exclusion, in effect calling for fairness and inclusion and calling the debate a farce, full of predictable stock responses and gotcha moments.

What else would have been discussed in the debate? With Eugene Platt in the debate we would have heard about the wasteful and dangerous federal subsidies of the MOX reactor in the Savannah River Site. We would have heard Platt advocate a non-interventionist foreign policy. We would have heard a genuine sustainable environmental point of view.